Bosch: Season 7 (Prime Video) — a review

So long, Harry—for a minute

The story of Harry Bosch continues on Bosch: Legacy, on FreeVee (formerly IMDb TV). I haven’t started watching it yet, but thought I’d wrap up my reviews on the excellent original series before doing so.

I won’t deny that I’ve been a Bosch fan from the beginning, back when he was just a character in the Michael Connelly novels. Now, he is indelibly imprinted in my mind as Titus Welliver, who was the perfect casting choice as far as I’m concerned.

The battered, bruised but not beaten LAPD detective, Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch, seems more tired than usual as this final season kicks off. He is that mystery fiction trope: the detective who cares, perhaps too much. Even though Harry Bosch has been responsible for putting away perhaps scores of dangerous killers—deadly human viruses, all—he remains haunted by the cases he has yet to solve. He keeps the photos of three dead women at his desk, to remind him that he still has work to do.

Harry, whose humble beginnings include a murdered prostitute mother and a stretch in a brutal foster system, is not at his best when dealing with departmental red tape and corrupt politics, though he stubbornly navigates those dangerous shoals as he has always done.

At one point, he tells his daughter Maddie, played by the terrific Madison Lintz, that, “Everybody counts or nobody counts.” It’s apparent to me now that this has always been the character’s mission statement, his basic programming. Harry Bosch is the detective you’d want investigating your own murder, because he will worry the case like a dog with a bone, long after his superiors have given up on it. He is a hero for the common person.

You might think I’m waxing a bit too hyperbolic here over a fictional detective. But, I believe that, in his own way, Bosch is as much a superhero as Captain America, only with a different kind of shield and perhaps—just perhaps, mind you—grounded a bit more in what we refer to as reality. I may be naive, but I even believe that there may be police detectives out there who share a lot in common with Bosch. These are the true heroes.

I know it’s popular to denigrate the police these days. While there will always be bad actors in every organization, including the police, I honestly want to believe that these are the exception. The system is indeed flawed, as is any system human beings are involved in, but I still want to believe that the majority of the police are there for the right reasons. A few bad apples and all that . . .

Season 7 of Bosch doesn’t ignore the public criticisms of police in general, or the LAPD in particular. Neither does Harry Bosch, the character, as we’ll find out by the end of the season.

The season’s central story arc begins with a Molotov cocktail bombing of an apartment building that kills five people. One of the victims is a 10-year-old girl, Sonia Hernandez, known in the press as “The Little Tamale Girl.” Sonia is the victim that keeps Bosch focused, if not outright obsessed.

As Bosch and his partner J. Edgar (Jamie Hector) investigate the firebombing, they lock horns with the FBI, who are involved in their own investigation. Another familiar mystery fiction trope: the police versus the Feebs. Of course, Bosch continually fights any type of authority in this series, and since he is the main protagonist, we always feel as if we’re on the side of the angels, regardless of the inherent flaws in the system itself.

There are only eight episodes in this final season. While the story moves at a brisk pace, there’s still time for side- and subplots. Maddie is working for lawyer Honey “Money” Chandler (Mimi Rogers), who has often been on the opposite side of issues from Bosch. The fraud case they are working on takes a dangerous and violent turn this season, that also puts Maddie’s life in danger. I’ll let you guess how Bosch reacts to this. Meanwhile, Lt. Grace Billets (Amy Aquino) is experiencing harassment from within the department itself. Since Bosch counts the lieutenant among his short list of friends, we can guess his reaction to this as well, although Billets is tough enough to stand up for herself. Finally, the Hollywood Division itself is apparently going to be closing up shop, and everyone is wondering where they’ll land. This in itself makes this feel like a final season.

I’m not trying to ruin anything for you if you haven’t watched this series yet. Let’s just say that Bosch’s no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners, scorched-earth tactics almost require the end of the series, while adroitly setting up the spinoff. We already know that Bosch lives to see the sequel, so we know there’s going to be no finale with real finality, ala Breaking Bad. Bosch lives.

Does everyone else? I’m not telling.

If you enjoyed the previous six seasons, you’ll like this one as well. The creative brains behind the series didn’t tinker with the formula at all. While things continue to change around Harry Bosch, the detective himself doesn’t change at all. In the end, Bosch remains the lone wolf modern-day noir detective (albeit a “lone” wolf that needs a few people in his life) who continues to tilt at windmills long after others have given up. A hero.

I look forward to watching Bosch: Legacy to see what the next chapter in Harry’s life looks like.

Firewater’s Everybody-Counts-or-Nobody-Counts Report Card: A

I’ve read the online criticism that the actions taken by Bosch’s partner J. Edgar in the previous season were too quickly swept under the rug in this one. While I can’t disagree with this opinion, it wasn’t really the story I wanted to spend time on this season. With two fewer episodes in the season, there wasn’t really time to deal with the fallout realistically.

Of course, I’m not against J. Edgar getting his own spinoff series. Chew on that one for a minute, FreeVee.

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